An Alternate View of Nicea?

The evident message of Gary Renard's work clearly lies in his own struggles on the path, including falling down and getting up. This pertains both to what's in the books, and to his fairly public life since the books appeared. He has been willing to make his mistakes and learn from them, and then share them with us in the process. Quite a feat for a shy person! Secondarily, the underlying theme that the apostles needed numerous more lifetimes before they "got it" is equally an important part of the message, for it makes the whole thing more approachable, and teaches us to be patient with ourselves. For only infinite patience yields immediate results...

Seen in this light the Gospels are not absolute truths but the grappling of people who felt themselves attracted to Jesus, trying to describe a phenomenon which appealed to them but which in most cases they were very far from understanding. The implications of such a view is among other things that the apocryphal materials are quickly seen to be equally as important as the canonical materials, since what made the canon the canon was a completely arbitrary process, which had nothing to do with the content of Jesus' teachings, but everything with the political needs of the Emperor Constantine. From that point of view the Council of Nicea was not a triumph, but a tomb for the burial of Jesus' message, in which he was forever made subservient to the Emperor. Nicea gave to the Emperor that which is God's, and ensured that Jesus served at the pleasure of the Emperor, an early version of employment at will (whose will?!). So Nicea really is the clincher, which furthermore buries Jesus's teachings under the veneer of Christianity, soon to be suitably decked out with marble and gold, so we won't look any further. Behind the facade however, the momentary unity began to slowly crumble again, almost as soon as it was established.

This view is in line with Prof. G.J. Heering's thesis in The Fall of Chrisitianity, and I think it is a more productive way to look at those first four centuries after Jesus, for it is the natural resistance of the ego to the teachings of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, which compels us to deny them and mold them into something else, including using them as a justifications for the ego's fear, hatred, and murder, which is what really happened.